


new perspective

by broyals



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Anderperry is just Todd rlly, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, M/M, POV Second Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23502253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broyals/pseuds/broyals
Summary: You spend seventeen years not quite existing, not quite knowing what it’s like to live. Then you meet Neil Perry.
Relationships: Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	new perspective

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled lulu uses italics way too much like the gay he is.

You spend seventeen years not quite existing, not quite knowing what it’s like to live. Or, maybe, you once did, but you were too young and you can’t seem to remember it anymore. It seems everyone else has learned how to be their own person and no one thought to teach you. 

You’ve never been noticeable, so meeting Neil Perry, learning you will share a room with him, is quite the odd experience. When he looks at you, it feels like you exist outside of your own body, like he is capable of seeing you, just you, not your parents or the endless list of achievements your brother left behind for you to never live up to. He looks at you and it scares you.

It scares you, so the first time he asks you to go to study group with his friends and him (and him, and _him_ ), you say no. What else are you supposed to say? You think, if he knew you he would only look at the failed potential, at the lacking everything, you think you don’t want to break the illusion of someone not seeing you as a disappointment. Maybe you exist only in Neil’s eyes, and maybe you are selfish to want to keep that. 

You are not Charlie Dalton, daring words, impulsive actions, noticeable even when quiet. Neil likes Charlie Dalton, so why should he like you?

Mr. Keating sees you too, and that’s scary in a different way. He sees you the way he sees any other boy in the class, he sees you for some unfounded potential you are sure you will somehow manage to waste. He talks of passion being inherent to humans, he talks of what you’re meant to stay alive for but are you even alive at all? When are you meant to find friendship, love, is that when you begin to exist? How can you be passionate when you are barely there? 

The Dead Poets Society starts with a yearbook, you watch the other boys talk of it and plan it, and you wonder how it’ll go. Then Neil asks you, specifically, separately, if you’ll go. _You_. You can’t say yes, of course you can’t, you are not meant to read out loud, be looked at, turn into something that exists beyond yourself. And so he bends the rules, makes it so that you can go, and maybe he wants you there, you for you not for who you could be, and maybe it makes you feel more than it should. 

And so you go, and they read around you, each with varying levels of confidence, with different tones and different ideas. They all read, and you do not, and they exist around you, and when will you do that? They’re so alive, and for a night they share that with you, and you don’t know if you’re grateful that you got to live it or resentful that you’ll miss it once the night is over now that you know what it’s like.

English class, Mr. Keating, new perspectives and different experiences, you know of nothing but that almost hour in your day where things are not the same as the mold that was left by people much greater than you. The only time you can almost feel adequate. 

There is no one as alive as Neil Perry, you think as he tells you of his plan to act. He’s loud and he’s running and he’s smiling and you would pay for him to smile forever. You would pay to be the reason he smiles forever.

And then, even then, as he is thinking of his own dreams and aspirations, he is still thinking of you, he still asks after what you will do, will you join the next meeting even after you were barely present in the last. He makes you feel something, lends you a bit of the overflowing life he has, you chase him around your room and laugh more than you ever have. Maybe it’s then that you can admit it to yourself, in the quiet of your mind, but never out loud. Unspoken words only to live inside of you.

Keating has you speak in front of others, be loud where you can be heard, and it might be the best thing that's ever happened to you. Words flow out of your mouth and it doesn't feel wrong and it doesn't feel like you're choking on them for once. You can't see the other boys' faces, and it doesn't matter what they look like. Because for once all that there is is you, and your words, and Neil's stare that you can feel on your face but you don't dare look back at because you are feeling a bit too confident and you can't trust yourself with looking at him right now. 

You continue to go to the cave, and other people seem to like you going. Maybe these are the awfully belated lessons on how to live you've been waiting for. 

You don't get Knox, although that is no wonder. You don't really get any of them. 

On your birthday, you are truly grateful for the gift your parents give you for the first time in years. It is the exact same one as last year, a useless desk you didn't like the first time and had no use for a second time. Except. _Except_ this time Neil sees it. He wishes you a happy birthday, gives your desk a brand new use. Makes your birthday feel like more than just another day. 

The play means everything to him, you have watched him stay up at night reading his lines, eyes bright and excited. You have helped him practice, have watched him perform even if just a little, have seen how much more life it brings to him. So when a day before the play is he looks not as enthusiastic as he used to be, you frown at him in your room. You think of saying something, but he clearly doesn't want anyone to see. He still smiles, he acts like an imitation of before. You say nothing. You will come to regret it. 

He's even better than he was when practicing lines with you at the dock. He's even more lively, he's where he's meant to be. The stage was made for Neil, the spotlight only shining as brightly as you think it is meant to when it is on him. And yet. And yet he doesn't look delighted as he ought to once it's over. He walks past you, and he looks a sad kind of happy, like whatever it was that kept him as bright before has been tainted. He looks at you and you look at him and you should say something. You say _nothing_. You _will_ come to regret it. 

It's the last time you see him. After that, he's gone. The words that lived inside you don't die with him, and maybe that's the worst part of it all. How are you meant to exist knowing he was there and now he's not? 

You don't cry when you first hear it. You don't do anything at all. You sit there and stare as all the other boys watch you as if expecting something. Tear tracks are on their faces. Maybe feelings don't exist because they aren't there, they aren't _there_ , you feel nothing. You feel empty. He's not there so part of you isn't either. He brought out whatever part of you was meant to be seen, he should have taken it with him. But you're still here, and he's not, and suddenly feelings do exist. You walk out and feelings do exist and they follow you and feelings do exist. And you feel _everything_ and you don't know if you want to go back to feeling nothing at all. 

You wonder if they know. They hold you when you cry, although you know they are hurting too, and all you can do is wonder if they know. You feel that no one knows what it's like to be you in that very moment, you feel selfish for thinking that. 

Afterwards, everything changes. Nothing changes. Mr. Keating is going, too, fired as Cameron is worried about himself much more than others, hypocritical as you already knew he was. The world goes on, even when it shouldn't. Everything should change, but it feels like, to everyone else, so little does. Maybe they're all keeping it inside, like you are. 

The last time you see Keating, he makes you feel as brave as you always have been, somewhere buried inside of you. 

You stand up, you call out to him, and then you realize the words aren't just inside of you anymore.

You are Todd Anderson. You were in love with Neil Perry, maybe you still are. You exist.

**Author's Note:**

> n e ways this was just word vomit, thanks to bibi for giving me the confidence to post it ily <333


End file.
